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A great days riding but the sunshine must've got to a few people, 4 ambulances up there during the afternoon session, hope everyone was ok!
Only been twice, once last weekend and once two years ago. What surprised me last week was the number of very amateur riders. Nothing against that and great to see it appealing to everyone, but some looked like they didn’t have the skills to navigate the blues (I saw two chaps walking down bits). As such I wonder if that has caused a few more accidents.
Only been twice but seemed to me to have got more difficult I those two years?? May just be that my already mediocre skills have further regressed!! Bonnyville qualifier was horrible!
Quailfiers are there for a reason, if someones walking them then continues on down the trail theres a good chance they are going to come a cropper!
I don't think its become tougher but there should be clear advice to people who haven't been before to start on the blues or even greens before moving up. Although some of the reds are a pretty big step up from the blues and maybe need looking at again.
The newer Reds have definitely been put up a notch since it opened, lots more features. It sort of feels to me like a load of features with some trail joining it up rather than a trail with some features in.
I've never been to BPW although can see that even at regular trail centres there are people riding at speeds and on routes way past their ability, with no actual skill other than the peddaling.
As above, learning and simply having fun can only be applauded but, the number of people with lovely very capable bikes and no idea how to ride them properly vs mountain bike riders with respect (and skill needed) for the trail and a bike seems to be increasing rapidly.
Good bikes are so flattering nowadays that the stupidity and accidents they absorb is immense compared to those of even just 10 years ago. Invariably this means the crashes and offs are getting progressively worse in outcome.
Sorry, this has turned into a bit of a rant, and hope those involved are ok.
Quailfiers are there for a reason, if someones walking them then continues on down the trail theres a good chance they are going to come a cropper!
There are a couple of qualifiers that I’ll walk because I’m not comfortable on them, and they are significantly more difficult than anything else on the trail.
It doesn’t help at BPW that you might have a ridden a trail easily a while ago but when you return it’s full of significant features. (I’m thinking of you, Insufficient Funds! No problems riding it but I was a little surprised when the first drop appeared.)
All of the trails have moved up a notch since they opened but the grading has stayed the same. Take the Bonneyville qualifier for example, that's a lot bigger than it was originally. I think it's more there for the black that goes off to the left though as there's nothing even remotely that big on Bonneyville itself. Some trails have worn in to be harder, others have been deliberately made tougher. Add in that a lot of new visitors make the mistake of comparing the blue at FOD for example to a BPW blue and you have the opportunity for multiple accidents every day.
I think part of the problem is that BPW is trying to be a halfway house between a trail centre and a DH venue with their grading in between the two. When they first opened they were adamant they were not a trail centre but they also weren't up to the level the DH riders wanted, places like Cwmcarn, Revolution and Antur were more their thing. That all changed when they won a few 'Trail Centre of the Year' awards, then they changed to marketing themselves towards everyone of all abilities. It's great seeing riders of all sexes, ages and abilities there but you can spot the potential accidents a mile off at times.
Was there a couple of weeks ago and some of the riders had no clue
People were stopping on the trail, not pulling to the side to check something out but stood bang in the middle of the trail!!
I agree the qualifiers sometimes don't correspond with the rest of the trail, Cole not Dole has a big'ish drop into it, yet after that its pretty much just rocky no drops or jumps
Think all the reds that have been modified now are classed as Red+
BPW can be a victim of its own success, when i was there it was raining so at lunch everyone headed in doors, the cafe queue went all the back through the bike shop, by the time i was served the burgers were dried up and cold
There was no where to sit as people were reserving tables with their full faces or having one mate wait at the table whilst the rest queued, almost got into an argument with some of them as we had bought food and wanted to sit down yet they insisted on not moving even though they had just joined the queue and we told them we would be done by the time they got their food but they still refused to move their helmets and lone mate
And guess what as we finished our food standing up they returned with their food to the reserved table!!!!
As said above the grading at BPW is off kilter with everywhere else I’m the UK. There’s very little consistency between any of the bike parks or trail centres. What’s within your limits at one will be very easy at another, or complete out of your league at the next.
I had had a big off last year. I’d rode all day within myself, repeated trails to get a feel for each. Then crashed on Sixtapod, on a fast section with no remarkable features. Just the speed.
I spoke to BPW a few weeks later and they admitted that their grading was out of sync with everyone else. The problem is that people turn up and ride basing their ability on other places. There’s no encouragement to walk the tracks first, or be able to pull over and check features out first.
The access to the trails was shown as rudimentary at best when mountain rescue couldn’t get equipment or me out without walking up and down the trail. I’m surprised that they keep getting planning permission to extend, when the amount of accidents is so high. Their risk assessment as part of the planning must be overlooked or not questioned, but the amount of admissions into A&E and via ambulance is a regular feature.
with no actual skill other than the peddling.
Biking is the new golf, and dare I say it e-bikes adding to this ability for people to get them self's more easily in to difficult situations, although this specific point is not relevant to BPW being an uplift venue..
Not been there for a bout a year now and even then it was with tendon issues in both wrists.
But considering I’m a long time mountain bike with average skill no big jumps but ok on trail stuff i can nail it at pace at most trail centres ok.
I do find the grading to be kinda out of whack.
I find reds pretty tec now so tend to stick to the blues and just nail them and there flowie goodness! And just pop on a few red sections as and when I feel the urge during the day.
Gotta say though bang for your buck the blues are great😉 do all the blues multiple times in a day! and you’ve probably done 20plus miles of DH trail riding easily
I wonder how much it costs the local hospitals to keep patching people up.
I do find the grading to be kinda out of whack
Grading should be taken as comparison for that venue only, rather than at a national or international level. If people are saying that BPW trails are harder than other trails centres of same grading then should all BPW trails be marked as black ? Then what about Revs or somewhere?
but the sunshine must’ve got to a few people,
From chatting to the guides at BPW, when its bone dry there it becomes slippery due to a layer of fine dust on the rocks, its grippier when damp & the dusts been washed away.
mountain rescue couldn’t get equipment or me out without walking up and down the trail.
To be fair to BPW, you've chosen to ride a tech singletrack trail, your never going to get a 4WD / Polaris vehicle down it, the access & egress to you will be via the nearest fire road, this is the same as all other centres. Unless you want to just session a fire road this will always be the case, your not gonna get winched out by a sea king. Be prepared for a long wait & be thankful that an unpaid volunteer offered to come and carry you out.
After witnessing the 417 Projects ineptitude at dealing with a broken rider mid way up the hill (they were VERY reluctant to allow the ambo in to the uplift loading circle as they wanted to keep riders riding), i spoke with one of the uplift drivers at BPW about their casualty access & egress and to his credit he seemed pretty switched on about it.
Their risk assessment as part of the planning must be overlooked or not questioned
Risk assessments a two way thing, them as BPW & you as a rider. The fact they got you extricated is a testament to theirs working.
oldnpastit - there was a study somewhere that concluded that even in high risk sports like surfing and mountain biking the health benefits of being active outweigh the occasional injury. I know someone who works in A&E at Prince Charles Hospital and he would take 20 injured BPW visitors every shift over a local drunk or drug user, we tend to not fight back!
<div class="bbp-reply-author">darrenspink
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Quailfiers are there for a reason, if someones walking them then continues on down the trail theres a good chance they are going to come a cropper!
If they're good qualifiers. BPW's qualis are mostly shit and unrepresentative of the trail, I've no issues with ignoring them.
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I think the new trails' unpredictable nature could catch out even good riders that are used to BPW, there's not much in the way of forewarning or progression on them, it's just kind of feature, then some different feature, all different sizes and sometimes pretty unsighted. Personally I don't mind that but it's so unlike the other trails that it probably catches people out all the time.
The other thing they do is change trails without signposting it. Popti suddenly aquired 2 much bigger, much steeper jumps this year and it's after a long series of gradually increasing tables that really anyone can ride any way. Not clever. They're good jumps but it's pretty much an ambush.
I love bpw and I love the trails but imo their build thought processes are not good.
Part of it is just the relentless fun is very draining, and the speed pick up is very quick. At most trail centres if you get five minutes of fun you’re lucky, then it’s a nice ride before the next nerve jangler. At BPW, it took a while to get used to concentrating for fifteen minutes at a time. I bloody love it. Had a couple of tank slappers when I dipped my toe in the red trails, but enjoyed it all the same.
I reckon BPW have got their trail grading right.
I know the majority of other UK trail centres, the typical FC one's I've been to. Blacks and reds, which are supposed to be difficult and technical, are way too risk averse with minimal features that just don't compare to Canadian and European bike parks. You can tell they have been built with LA oversight, erring toward idiot proofing, rather than delivering the features the grading suggests. Some have had more difficult features erased due to the amount of accidents!
There's definitely a problem with interpretation and consistency, particularity with older neglected trail centres and the FC's overzealous use of black rated trails which are nothing of the sort.
Now I'm not expecting people to agree with me but I think trails graded advanced/technical should have features inline with the rating, i.e. the blacks should be bloody difficult, with an expectation of drops and/or jumps, aimed squarely at experienced bike handlers.
Accidents are going to happen, it's a risky sport/hobby. How you stop delusional numpties and chest bumping chimps ruining it for everyone else I don't know!
Totally agree that grading is bollocks tbh. But equally if you do your grading out of line with what everyone else is used to, even if yours is more accurate, that's problematic too. I think BPW have it mostly right, especially the way they've tried to divide into jumpy and techy, that's so useful to a one-day visitor.
I ended up in Merthyr A&E dept after an off! I can’t speak highly enough of the staff, they were so helpful and friendly. Bring a medical man myself I ended up chatting to the staff and it turns out they really don’t mind the mountain bikers. It’s more rewarding for them to treat polite people with obvious injuries that are easily sorted and diagnosed than drunks with complex problems.
I came off on an easy bit of trail after being so pleased I landed a jump. No idea what happend - survived the jump and the found myself heading towards the hillside on a flat bit of trail!
i did think there was a big jump from the blues to the reds. As a solid trail rider happy with Glentress/Coed Y Brenin etc reds I loved the blues but the reds were much harder.
I think the grading at BPW is pretty accurate:
Clear split into Flow Vs Tech and colour grading based on difficulty, with vids of each trail easily available. It matches most of EU / US. Red and black are meant to be hard right?
IMI it’s other U.K. trail centres that have it wrong, grading red and black based on length. E.g Swinley / Bedgebury reds are clearly not red and their blues should be green.
I saw many people heading way too fast into corners with bad line which will take you out on a blue or black the same.
I think the grading at BPW is pretty accurate
I'd agree with this.
At the simplest level, Green = Beginner, Blue = Intermediate, Red = Advanced, Black = Expert. On that basis you should expect some manageable drops on red runs. While the quali at the start of Bonneville isn't representative of the rest of the trail, it looks worse than it is, IMO.
I hope everyone who had a prang is OK.
I think the trails at BPW are fab. Loving the new red+ stuff. I think it is helping to advance the riding skills of regular visitors. I don't think that the grading is off I just think that some people who have been riding for ages aren't that bothered about learning new skills. Some of us and the kids who are bringing on the next generation certainly are.
Lots of my mates just like to ride which is great. Good luck to them, they are super fit and can ride all day. My kids like to session jumps and practice technique down the skate park. Guess who has better skills?
I did visit over the summer though and over-crowding was certainly an issue. they are planning to upgrade their facilities and it can't come too soon. The parking is over-full, the cafe was running out of lots of things including seating but this is just because they were too good.
On the health and safety thing, I did see quite a few people learning the benefit of body armour and elbow pads the hard way on the last couple of visits too.
i did think there was a big jump from the blues to the reds.
From Melted Welly to Root Maneuvers yes, from Sixtapod to Wibbly Wobbly or Surfin Bird not so much.
I think BPW grading works well, just don't expect it to be translate to exactly the same difficulty as elsewhere. There will always be a breadth of trails within a colour/grade, and BPW provide a handy scale ordering the trails by difficulty, not just colour, so you can make informed choices on how much you want to step up the difficulty when choosing which trail to ride.
It would be interesting to see accident statistics against each trail. I expect the blues would top the list with both inexperienced riders and experienced rider pushing the speed.
Lot of presumption on this thread!
I think the grading is great - they even tell you which are the techy trails, or flowy trails.
I’m red standard, but crashed and ended up in a&e on a blue, just a moment of carelessness. Chatting to a fella at work who did the same, properly smashed himself up near the bottom of a blue. Had to be ambulanced to Merthyr and spent 7 hours! Luckily i just hurt ribs and didn’t have to wait.
Crashes can happen in the most innocuous ways, to decent riders.
BPW grading is great as are the choice of trails.
If you charge down ANY trail without checking it out first run eg slowing down/stopping and having a proper look you are asking for trouble
Even if you thnik you know it well it is likely to wear and change or just be rebuilt here and there.
I hope all the casualties make a full recovery.
dare I say it e-bikes adding to this ability for people to get them self’s more easily in to difficult situations, although this specific point is not relevant to BPW being an uplift venue..
So why post that shit then...
As for grading there.
This seems a pretty good guide to me.
Cant think of any more comprehensive guides at any UK trail destination.
Take some responsibility for your self's kids.
I'm more of a fan of the guide at Ffestiniog.
First time we went the guy at the signing on desk gave us the "rules"
Reds are ok with a trail helmet, blacks you can't ride without a fullface.
Though when you get out the bus there's no one to stop you riding whatever you like wearing whatever you like.
Set the tone for a brilliant first time there perfectly.
So we're home after another great weekend in Wales. Been over to cwmcarn today and had a good peddle out there before heading home. There's a few tasty jumps and drops there for sure.
My lad who is 13 and riding my 7 year old spesh xc has pretty much shown quite a few of the big misters a thing or two this weekend. However.... if there's a new trail we haven't rode before above a blue grade, roots being one of them this weekend, I ride up front and shout back what's coming up, whether he can roll it whether he needs to commit and take the jump etc etc, works well for us and I think that kind of approach is great.
A470 (we've rode it a few times) however was next level this time with him cleaning every single jump to land on the down, I was so so proud!
We'd be back tomorrow if it wasn't for school and work!
Just use your eyes and experience. Jeez! Does everyone need to be spoon fed these days.
I think generally they get it right., Deep Navigation isn't really a black, and Inefficient Funds really should be black, not red probably, apart from that, some of the newly built bigger stuff on A470 was a bit of surprise, but still manageable, hadn't realised the quali on Bonnieville was any bigger though, which goes to show how much attention I'm paying to it all.
I was there on Friday on a 100mm hardtail and an xc lid. I ride within my limits (sort of) as I wasn't familiar with the trails at all. I thought the place was amazing. Loved every minute of it. The only problem I had was when somebody randomly stopped dead mid trail and mid flow.! Other than that it was all gravy.
One thing I will add is that I like to think I'm above average on a MTB, not massively but I've been at it for many years, I'm also a fairly fit roadie but towards the end of the day I was feeling knackered. Eight runs into the day and I was cooked and things were getting a bit slopy. Does fatigue have a part to play with the accidents.?
Yup, I'd say fatigue is probably the main cause of accidents there, along with overconfidence caused by big bikes + body armour and full faces.
Last time I was there I managed 12 runs, and the last one especially I was knackered. Fell off on a very innocuous corner on one of the reds. No serious injury luckily, but could have been a lot worse.
Had a bit of a chuckle when i read that folks think BPW has techy trails. what on earth do you regularly ride to think that??
what on earth do you regularly ride to think that??
Ridgeway 🙂
BPW is like Alton towers to riders like me 🙂
I was there on Sunday. Didn't see any serious accidents but did see a few people who had skinned elbows and knees etc. Not sure why people ride without pads there as some of those trails have a seriously tough based with plenty of rock in it to abrade your skin.
I'd also agree with the point about the dust making it slippery - I've ridden there in the snow and had more grip that on some sunny dusty days although that could be down to tyre choice.
BPW do always post new videos on YouTube when they rework the trails and I always make sure I watch them before going to see what has changed. It's saved me from a few unpleasant occurrences I'm sure. I can ride the blues no problem, red (and some of the black) tech trails but tend to avoid the + trails as I'm not that great at jumping so I ride to my strengths as I'm there to have fun not damage myself but then I'm heading rapidly towards 50 so it takes a long time to recover from anything.
And yes, fatigue is probably the biggest cause of offs there - as soon as I find myself making multiple mistakes per run with near offs I take a rest or call it a day.
b45her
Had a bit of a chuckle when i read that folks think BPW has techy trails. what on earth do you regularly ride to think that??
Oh MY GOD! This person is HOT SEX personified. Please be my lover before I SWOON to my death.
I think it should be graded differently to other trail centres because it is very different.
1.Its the only one where you dont have to pedal uphill so you spend all day blasting downhill which is great fun but does require alot more concentration. Whilst I enjoy trail centres you only really have to concentrate for 2 or 3 minutes on each of the descents. the rest of the time you are pedaling round
2. Its the only one where you are out all day, When was the last time you set off riding a trail centre at 9am and gave up at 4 /5 pm? Most take 2 -4 hours to get round
3. Its the only trail centre I know of in the UK where most riders are in full face helments and wearing alot more body armour than they would at any other trail centre. This is a good thing but it shows that most riders think its harder and has a higher risk of a crash
Had a bit of a chuckle when i read that folks think BPW has techy trails. what on earth do you regularly ride to think that??
Jesus what is it about this forum that brings out the boring elitists every time BPW is mentioned?
Yep, the difficulty chart is good - between that and all the signage there's no excuses for thinking you can manage a Thetford red and ending up launching yourself off the side of Insufficient Funds. I think some people feel they have to try a red or black though and can come unstuck - at least that chart points them at the easier ones now.
Some of the qualifiers have changed - Dai Hard gap jump is gone now for instance.
We tend to go on a Friday and I can't say I've seen many accidents. You do get the odd stag (pre) party riding though with some of the group wobbling away on hire bikes but they all seem to make it down the blues and have a good time. Fatigue definitely a factor though - my mate's only BPW injury was catching his bars on the fence by the uplift circle and putting his shoulder out falling down the hill!
Had a bit of a chuckle when i read that folks think BPW has techy trails. what on earth do you regularly ride to think that??
Well anything's technical if you go fast enough, so I think this guy is just slow and expects the trails to entertain him whilst he sits on his bike and trundles about.
I went Cody over 15 years ago. i rode stuff that was outside my comfort zone as "it must be doable as someone has actually built this rather than nature throwing up an obstacle."
There was a taped off area as I think someone had died a week before.
I guess in this health and safety culture we expect to be shielded from danger.
1.Its the only one where you dont have to pedal uphill so you spend all day blasting downhill which is great fun but does require alot more concentration. Whilst I enjoy trail centres you only really have to concentrate for 2 or 3 minutes on each of the descents. the rest of the time you are pedaling round
2. Its the only one where you are out all day, When was the last time you set off riding a trail centre at 9am and gave up at 4 /5 pm? Most take 2 -4 hours to get round
Other than all the rest ?
3. Its the only trail centre I know of in the UK where most riders are in full face helments and wearing alot more body armour than they would at any other trail centre. This is a good thing but it shows that most riders think its harder and has a higher risk of a crash
That's because most riders are riding the uplift .. most people on most uplifts are wearing a FF and more armour in my experience... if I'm going to ride up vs push-up vs shuttle ... I stuck body armour and a FF on yesterday for a day's pushup but I'd have ridden the same without had I been riding up.
Cannop might have a lot of people in the car-park but most people on the uplift are wearing a FF
After that BPW is rock.... vs say Cannop where its mostly loam and roots...
its not the bad grading or the ambulances tha bother me
by the time i was served the burgers were dried up and cold
its always like this, the service & food are pants ime, llandegla, now thats got a good cafe!
yes I know its not a restaurant, but I liek what I like
Saw somebody pushing over the qualifier at Insufficient funds, claimed he didn't have the speed to clear it from where he started, explained that he should of pushed up to a better position to roll into it. Gave him a gap, caught him up a few drops down the trail, he then proceeded to haul on the anchors right at the lip of one of the drops, muppet!